Vanuatu Malekula Island - 2024
$ 15.33
Origin: Vanuatu, Malekula Island
Type: Foraster, Amelonado
Certifications: Direct Trade
Harvest Year: 2024
Flavor Notes:
First, how to pronounce this country you may not have heard of.
Va-new-ah-two
It is part of a string of islands between Fiji and Australia. In many ways, unsurprisingly, it puts me in mind of some beans from Fiji, which I generally adore. This is no exception.
Being a strong Amelonado Forastero, I'm very much hoping this will be the next Ghana in regards of bold chocolate flavors, approachable and diversity of use now that Ghana is not available. At this point, I have eaten way too much of it, in the best way.
Flavor Profile
The aroma is straight forward chocolate. The flavor is chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. Backing this up is tanned leather and a slightly rustic earthy flavor. I've never quite tasted a chocolate with this profile.
It is deeply approachable in a hind brain kind of way that has you marveling at the unique but not off putting flavors. Initially I did not find it bitter but the more I ate and my tastes became muted to the dynamic profile, I was started teasing out very light walnut skin notes.
The low fruits present are understated and not well defined to type other than calling them dried brown fruits. It puts me in mind of dried banana and cherimoya. It lends a lasting sweetness that although strong, is alluring and will have you going back for more.
I've made this into chocolate from 60% up to 80% and it shines everywhere in there. It also is bold enough to be well suited to milk chocolates and nearly any inclusion.
This cacao is not from a single farm, but rather a collection of small farms around the village of Pinalum on the western side of the island of Malekula. This island is entirely rural and agricultural. With only ~20,000 residents on the entire island, which is slightly larger than Maui, there is no town to speak of, just one settlement, Lakatoro, with a grocer, hardware shop, gas station and open market. On the farms, about 90% of the trees are old heirloom amelonado that was introduced in the late 1800s.
Olivier is the founder of Gaston Chocolate, a certified B corporation, and has made bean to bar chocolate on the nearby island of Efate for over 10 years from the community of Pinalum that he has a strong relationship with for many years. Since chocolate sales are limited in such a small nation and Pinalum produced more than he needed, it was decided to expand the central fermenting center in the community to try exporting cacao, achieve better farm gate prices, and see how the reaction in the US would be.
Profile Drum Roasting: Feel free to take the kid gloves off here. This bean benefits from a strong firm hand. There is so much depth of flavor here that you can and should roast fast and hard. The profile I used for this is 11:40/13:50/18:00 @ 262 F
You can certainly roast this to a lower temperature but you want to keep the Finishing phase around 5 minutes for full, deep heat penetration and astringency mitigation.
Behmor: P1 for 18-19 minutes with 2 lb will be just fine. Go by the aroma. When it turns sharper near the end of the count down, you are done. If it isn't there yet, add a bit more time waiting for the turn of aroma. Due to the cold start of the the Behmor, you can just set it on the 1 lb setting with 2.5 lb of cocoa and go. When you begin getting aromatic notes, somewhere around 4 minutes left (14 minutes elapsed of the 18 minute start) drop the power to P4 (75% power) and continue roasting for about another 6-8 minutes, waiting for the aroma to either decrease or get sharp. This is all of course if you don't have a thermocouple in the beans (Modifying your Behmor) If you have that you can follow the profiles above.
Oven Roasting: You will need an IR thermometer. Roast 2 lb of beans. Preheat your over to 325 F. Place your cocoa beans in a single layer on a baking sheet and into the oven. Stir the beans at 5 minutes and check the temperature. Continue roasting until the surface temperature reads 205-215 F (it may well vary across the beans). At that point, turn your oven down 10-15 F above your target EOR, in this case 265 + ~15 = 280 and continue to roast, stirring every 5 minutes until approximately 265 F. Again, there will be variation but the beauty of this method is having turned the oven down it is difficult to over roast. The important part here is to get good momentum going in a hot oven and then basically coasting to finish. You may not get much chocolate or brownie aroma with this one.
